Icing of aircraft propeller blades during adverse ambient flight conditions is known to occur. Ice formation and accumulation on the propeller blades may cause degraded component and/or system performance. Shearing of accumulated ice may also be entrained in the free stream flow and may damage aircraft components in the downstream path of the flying ice fragment(s). Such damage may incapacitate various systems and/or damage aircraft components.
Conventional methods for de-icing flight control surfaces are based only on electrical resistive heating (i.e., a joule heating process). Resistive heating techniques, however, typically consume large amounts of power while providing poor thermal transfer efficiency.